The Greatest Sci-Fi Video Game of the 2010s Is Perfect From Start to Finish

Image via Valve Published Aug 15, 2026, 12:08 AM EDT Lucas Kloberdanz-Dyck is a writer for Collider. He grew up creating lists, stories, and worlds, which led to his love of anime and video games. He attended Sheridan College where he earned an Honours Bachelor of Game Design. Lucas and his group won 1st place for technical innovation at LevelUp Toronto 2023, and he was also an intern for the Oakville Film Festival of Arts. Sign in to your Collider account Video games are now the most popular form of media, with millions of players around the world experiencing immersive titles such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and groundbreaking narratives like Red Dead Redemption 2. Lately, video games have been a source of inspiration for TV and movie adaptations, like what happened with A Minecraft Movie and Borderlands, and other times they get their own TV shows, including The Last of Us and Halo. That is to say, we're living in a golden age for video games, with new, exciting titles coming out every year. Valve is best known for being the company behind Steam, the largest source of video games, which always has a generous amount of sales. However, they used to make video games, including masterpieces like Half-Life and Portal, and only improved them in the future with sequels. In particular, Portal 2 is known for being one of the greatest video games of all time, innovating the landscape with its physics-based gameplay and innovation. Time has only been kind to it, and now, we can appreciate it even more for being a truly singular sci-fi experience, the likes of which we haven't seen before or since. What Is 'Portal 2' About? Image via Valve The first Portal game came out in 2007, instantly becoming a must-play classic because of its fun puzzle gameplay. Players control a silent protagonist named Chell, who wakes up in a scientific facility. Not knowing what to do, an AI named GLaDOS guides the player through a series of puzzles and challenges using the portal gun. However, when Chell is dropped into an incinerator, she barely survives and now tries to escape the facility while avoiding the clutches of the AI. Following a big boss battle with GLaDOS, Chell is seemingly free to live in the real world, only to be dragged back into the facility. This directly sets up the story in Portal 2, where everything is bigger and better. Coming out four years later in 2011, Portal 2 upped everything compared to the first game. Set decades after the events of the first game, Chell awakens again, greeted by the same motel-style room, but this time worn down and isolated. There, she is greeted by Wheatley, a fast-talking AI core who reveals to her that the facility is shut down and is falling apart at the seams. Working together to help escape, the duo accidentally wakes up GLaDOS. Furious with the player, she sends Chell into a crumbling facility, making her an experiment in even more rigorous, dangerous, and challenging puzzle rooms. After Chell and Wheatley defeat GLaDOS, the latter is now in control and quickly gets drunk on his newfound power, sending Chell into the depths of the old facility. With no other option, she must team up with GLaDOS, now in the form of a potato battery. As they investigate and make their way through the old testing grounds, they learn many things about the founder and his assistant. Portal 2 ends with the duo escaping by defeating Wheatley, whose incompetence has set off a nuclear reactor within the facility, finally granting Chell her freedom in the outside world. It isn't known for being one of the best story-driven video games, but it has incredible lore, environmental storytelling, and witty dialogue that pace the narrative perfectly. Portal 2 Is Still a Video Game Masterpiece! Image via Valve Portal was an incredible game, but after Portal 2, the first one felt like a vertical slice, highlighting how impressive and expansive the second game was. Its legacy still lives on today, establishing itself as a masterpiece of the modern era of gaming. The experimental physics engine is still remarkable by today's standards, providing a level of technical craft that gives players unlimited freedom in their creativity and problem-solving. Portal 2 isn't just a single-player experience; it has a multiplayer mode that is just as engaging, rearranging the design so it works perfectly with two players. This intellectually stimulating game is like a toy come to life, featuring so many ways to enjoy everything it offers. Few video games hold up like Portal 2, which not only features nice graphics and visuals, but also unrivalled gameplay with some of the most creative and rewarding challenges. This video game is perfect from start to finish, keeping a tight pace through its magnificent level design that teaches, tests, and then challenges, making sure the player is capable of solving everything, but not too easily. It is a masterclass of level design and onboarding, which is what makes each level so memorable. Not to mention the narrative, writing, and environment have deep lore that isn't heavy-handed. Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Survival Quiz Which Sci-Fi World Would You Survive? The Matrix · Mad Max · Blade Runner · Dune · Star Wars Five universes. Five completely different ways the future went wrong — or sideways, or up in flames. Only one of them is the world your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out which dystopia, galaxy, or desert wasteland you'd actually make it out of alive. 💊The Matrix 🔥Mad Max 🌧️Blade Runner 🏜️Dune 🚀Star Wars TEST YOUR SURVIVAL → 01 You sense something is deeply wrong with the world around you. What do you do? The first instinct is often the truest one. APull on every thread until I understand the system — then figure out how to break it. BStop asking questions and start stockpiling — food, fuel, weapons. Questions don't keep you alive. CKeep my head down, observe carefully, and trust no one until I know who's pulling the strings. DStudy the patterns. Every system has a rhythm — learn it, and you learn how to survive it. EFind the people fighting back and join them. You can't fix a broken galaxy alone. NEXT QUESTION → 02 In a world of scarcity, what resource do you guard most fiercely? What we protect reveals what we believe survival actually requires. AKnowledge. If you understand the system, you don't need resources — you can generate them. BFuel. Everything else — movement, power, escape — runs on it. CTrust. In a world of fakes and informants, a truly reliable ally is rarer than any commodity. DWater. And after water, information — the two things empires are truly built on. EShips and credits. The galaxy is big — you survive it by being able to move through it freely. NEXT QUESTION → 03 What kind of threat keeps you up at night? Fear is useful data — if you're honest about what you're actually afraid of. AThat reality itself is a lie — that everything I experience has been constructed to keep me compliant. BA raid. No warning, no mercy — just the roar of engines and then nothing left. CBeing identified. Once someone with power decides you're a problem, you're already out of time. DBeing outmanoeuvred — losing a political game I didn't even know I was playing. EThe Empire tightening its grip until there's nowhere left to run. NEXT QUESTION → 04 How do you deal with authority you don't trust? Every dystopia has a power structure. Your approach to it determines everything. ASubvert it from the inside — learn its rules well enough to weaponise them against it. BIgnore it and stay out of its reach. The further from any power structure, the better. CAppear to comply while doing exactly what I need to do. Visibility is the enemy. DManoeuvre within it carefully. You can't beat a system you refuse to understand. EResist openly when I have to. Some things are worth the risk of being seen. NEXT QUESTION → 05 Which environment could you actually endure long-term? Survival isn't just tactical — it's physical, psychological, and very much about where you are. AUnderground bunkers and server rooms — cramped, artificial, but with access to everything that matters. BOpen wasteland — brutal sun, no shelter, constant movement. At least the threat is honest. CA dense, rain-soaked city where you can disappear into the crowd and nobody asks questions. DMerciless desert — extreme heat, no water, and something enormous living beneath the sand. EThe fringe — backwater planets and busy spaceports where the Empire's attention rarely reaches. NEXT QUESTION → 06 Who do you want in your corner when things fall apart? The company you keep is the clearest signal of who you actually are. AA tight crew of believers who've seen behind the curtain and have nothing left to lose. BOne or two people I'd trust with my life. Any more than that and someone talks. CNobody, ideally. Alliances are liabilities. I work alone unless I have no choice. DA community bound by shared hardship and mutual survival — people who need each other to last. EA ragtag team with wildly different skills and total commitment when it counts. NEXT QUESTION → 07 Where do you draw the line — if you draw one at all? Every survivor eventually faces a moment that tests what they're actually made of. AI won't harm the innocent — even the ones who'd report me without hesitation. BI do what I have to to protect the people I've chosen. Everything else is negotiable. CThe line shifts depending on who's asking and what's at stake. DI draw a long-term line — nothing that compromises my people's future, even if it'd help now. ESome lines, once crossed, can't be uncrossed. I know which ones they are. NEXT QUESTION → 08 What would actually make survival worth it? Staying alive is one thing. Having a reason to is another. AWaking others up — dismantling the illusion so no one else has to live inside it. BFinding somewhere — or someone — worth protecting. A reason to keep moving. CAnswers. Understanding what I am, what any of this means, before time runs out. DLegacy — shaping the future in a way that outlasts me by generations. EFreedom — for myself, for others, for every world still living under someone else's boot. REVEAL MY WORLD → Your Fate Has Been Calculated You'd Survive In…Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for. The MatrixYou took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You're a systems thinker who can't help but notice the seams in things. You're drawn to understanding how the system works before figuring out how to break it. You'd find the Resistance, or it would find you — your instinct for spotting constructed realities is the machines' worst nightmare. You function best when you have access to information and the freedom to act on it. The Matrix built an airtight prison. You'd be the one probing the walls for the door. Mad MaxThe wasteland doesn't reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That's you. You don't need comfort, community, or a cause larger than the next horizon. You need a vehicle, a clear threat, and enough fuel to outrun it — and you're good at all three. You are unsentimental enough to survive that world, and decent enough — just barely — to be something more than another raider. In the wasteland, that distinction is everything. Blade RunnerYou'd survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely. You read people accurately, keep your circle small, and ask the questions others prefer not to answer. In a city where humanity is a legal designation rather than a feeling, you hold onto something that keeps you functional. You're not a hero. But you're not lost, either. In Blade Runner's world, that distinction is everything. DuneArrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards. Patience, discipline, and political awareness are your core strengths — and on Arrakis, they're survival tools. You understand that the long game matters more than any single victory. Others come to Dune and are consumed by it. You'd learn its logic and earn its respect. In time, you wouldn't just survive Arrakis — you'd begin to reshape it. Star WarsThe galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn't have it any other way. You find meaning in being part of something larger than yourself — a cause, a crew, a rebellion. You'd gravitate toward the Rebellion, or the fringes, or whatever pocket of the galaxy still believes the Empire's grip can be broken. You fight — not because you have to, but because standing aside isn't something you're capable of. In Star Wars, that willingness is what makes all the difference. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ Will We Ever See a 'Portal' Movie or TV Show? It seems to be possible to make a movie or television series out of any video game, as evidenced by the great Werewolves Within. Technically, Valve and J.J. Abrams teamed up to make film adaptations of both Portal and Half-Life, but after over a decade with few updates, it is likely that they didn't take off. Still, there is nothing denying its existence, meaning it might have a better chance than fans realize, especially with the hype around the most recent video game movie, Backrooms. Directed by the original creator, Kane Parsons, the film's massive success has brought the Portal movie discussion back. The challenge lies in the design of the game and its narrative connection. With the protagonist being a silent character, a talking character would ruin the style right from the get-go. Not to mention, the narrative is inherently interactive, with the fun of the story coming from the puzzles and lore players are able to explore; simply learning about it doesn't evoke the same emotions as playing through it. There is only one human in the game, making it more challenging to create a good movie while being true to the game as well. Valve is also dedicated to delivering perfect content, and with so many potential flaws, it is best that a movie never makes it past the pitch meeting. It is unlikely a Portal 2 movie or show will ever happen, and that is a good thing. There is a reality where it turns out okay, but the risk is far greater than the reward, with the video game already being an established masterpiece. There is nothing a movie could add to this universe that a game couldn't. Years later, Portal 2 is still the best sci-fi game of the 2010s, and that likely isn't going to change, remaining an influential classic that is still fun today. Portal 2 is available to play on Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates in the future.